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CBS newsman Mike Wallace might be remembered by most as a bare-knuckles broadcast journalist renowned for his tough interviews with the powerful, famous and rich, and a pioneer of the surprise “ambush” interview. But it is an incredible act of kindness to my family that I will always recall.

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When I picked up my phone in 1986 and heard, “Hello, this is Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes,” I honestly thought it was a friend’s prank call. At the time, I was writing my first book, Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring. Wallace heard that I was the only reporter who had gotten in to see John Walker, and he asked whether I could help him secure an exclusive interview with the American spy.

Walker hated the news media and had no interest talking about how he had spent 18 years spying for the Soviet Union along with his son, Michael, his brother, Arthur, and his best friend, Jerry Whitworth, all of whom he had recruited as traitors. His arrest in 1985 was the biggest spy scandal since Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted and executed in 1953.

I was flattered that someone as influential as Mike Wallace was calling, and I immediately agreed to help. I got Walker to agree to give Wallace an exclusive for 60 Minutes. While Wallace was interviewing the traitor, they took a break in filming and Wallace called me from the federal prison in Marion, Ill., to check facts. “This is great stuff!” he assured me.

It was great. Wallace’s interview with Walker was mesmerizing. In one memorable scene, Wallace eviscerated Walker by asking him how he could be so heartless as to groom his only son to be a traitor, leaving the arrogant spy speechless. Wallace won an Emmy for that interview, one of 21 Emmys that he collected.

And what of my book and me?

Wallace never mentioned either. He and 60 Minutes basked in the limelight.

I felt duped.

Then, a second phone call

As fate would have it, Wallace called me again two years later after he read another of my books. I told him that I felt deceived because of how he had handled the Walker story. What happened next shocked me. The powerful Mike Wallace apologized. He explained that he had been going through an extremely tough period in 1986 and that he had done some things he later regretted.

More than a decade later, my college-age son, Mike, was arrested after he developed a mental illness and broke into a stranger’s house to take a bubble bath. I managed to get him into a local mental ward, but his psychiatrist telephoned 24 hours later and said the hospital was going to discharge him in the morning because our insurance company didn’t want to continue paying his bill.

I was desperate, so I faxed a letter to Mike Wallace’s office because he was the most influential newsman I knew. Within 15 minutes, Wallace called and we spent an hour on the phone. I knew he had suffered from clinical depression, but I hadn’t known how ill he’d been.

He told me about how he’d become exhausted by the pressures that he was under at 60 Minutes, especially because of the infamous lawsuit against CBS by Gen. William Westmoreland. CBS had alleged that Westmoreland and others deliberately underestimated Viet Cong troop strength during 1967 in order to maintain U.S. troop morale and support for the war. Wallace mentioned how he talked openly on the air about how he had considered suicide in 1986 — the very year when we met.

He urged me to “have hope,” and then he did something truly incredible. Now that he has died, I can reveal it. At the time, he asked me to keep it private because he didn’t want CBS executives to hear about it. Journalists are not supposed to use their influence to intimidate people.

Mike Wallace called the hospital where my son was a patient. He asked the administrator there why he was discharging my son when his own psychiatrist didn’t think he was ready.

The result: My son wasn’t discharged. He got the help he needed.

A friendship forged

Although he was busy, Wallace telephoned me several times after that to ask about my son. We became friends and, in one of those calls, he mentioned the Walker story and how he had not given my book or me any credit.

He jokingly told me that he had repaid his debt.

I told him that what I had done for him paled in comparison with what he had done for my son and for me.

Mike Wallace was a hero of mine in journalism long before I ever met him. But for those of us with mental disorders or with loved ones who have mental illnesses, he will be best remembered for his courage in speaking out about his own personal struggles with severe depression and suicidal thoughts — and by doing so, fighting stigma and prejudice.

Pete Earley is the author of Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness,which was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Fairfax, Va.

A new biography of the late “60 Minutes” reporter reveals how he changed broadcasting while besting inner demons

Screenwriter and director Peter Rader’s first book, “Mike Wallace: A Life” was already slated for release on April 13 when Wallace died last weekend at age 93. Rader spoke to CJR about Wallace’s insecurities, the origins of his famed interview techniques, and the tragedy that spurred his journalism career. Rader’s answers have been condensed and edited.

Why did you select Mike Wallace as the subject of your first book?

My sister worked for Mike in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and she told me an anecdote about one of their first sort of profound conversations that just made me completely intrigued by this man. My sister was scheduled to meet Mike Wallace and escort him to a remote, I think it was a refugee camp and, on that ride, he told her a story of the tragic and unexpected death of his son at age 19, when he was 47. What’s kind of amazing about the Mike Wallace story is that he did not join CBS News until he was 47 years old—the idea of being a full time, bona fide journalist did not begin until midlife. And there was something so powerful about that. It always stayed with me. Years later, I was thinking that I’d really like to write a biopic, and the idea of Mike came into my mind. Warner Bros. said, “It’s intriguing, it’s fascinating, but we need a book to set this up.”

Was this an authorized biography?

No. It was rare that I talked to [Wallace], and ultimately he declined to go on the record.

How did you go about reporting it?

He pointed me to his collection of personal papers that he had just donated to the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan. There was just so much there, and Mike was on the record in so many instances. The other aspect of the story is that so many people who crossed paths with him have also authored memoirs. My sister helped off the record—she had a four or five-year [working] relationship [with Wallace] in some remote places. They did probably 30 stories together. She put me in touch with her boss, Barry Lando, who is based in Paris and worked as a “60 Minutes” senior producer for 30 years.

What are some of the most unexpected things you learned about Wallace?

One of the overarching themes that was astonishing to me is that, on some levels, Mike, throughout his career, harbored insecurities about his credentials as a journalist. Here you have one of the most well-regarded, iconic broadcast journalists in America and yet, on the inside, he has the feeling of being a fraud. Mike began his career as a TV personality—as a showman, as a pitchman for cigarettes and other products. He came into the business as an entertainer and then made the transition to journalism, so it’s certainly understandable why he would be sensitive to charges of sensationalism and questions about his credentials. And yet that very thing became one of his great strengths as a reporter. As a former actor, he was able to really listen in interviews and also provoke, make a facial gesture, indicate some skepticism in a way that invoked his interviewees to squirm. His best question was often the single word “and,” or even just skeptical silence and a raised eyebrow.

When Mike arrived on set, he often had less than two hours before an interview; he is essentially doing a scripted piece. When you think about how it must have made him feel—was he really a reporter? But Mike took us from print journalism into broadcast journalism. When he was born, there wasn’t even radio. He was one of the very early radio announcers, delivering news in what was called the “rip and read” style, in which you took the copy right off the AP wires. Then of course came the advent of television itself, and Mike actually, interestingly had some reluctance to make that transition. He didn’t think he had a TV face.

How did you react to the news of Wallace’s death?

I was caught completely off guard and deeply saddened. The fact that it happened to coincide with the release of my book was kind of just bizarre. I really did not expect this, and certainly, what can I say? I’d say that I think it’s really important that so much focus is being placed upon Mike Wallace right now, because he was such an iconic figure in transforming the way the news was presented and the news was consumed by the general public. So the extent to which my book can contribute to shining a light on what was an extraordinary life, I’m glad.